Consortium of Seven: Year 4

Stuff.  Stuff just lies around, doesn’t it? It just sits there, existing without us noticing or bothering with it. Stuff we need, stuff we like, stuff we want. Whether we live in a minimalist reality or a cluttered one, we need some amount of stuff. Even if it’s just a toothbrush.  The still life is the ultimate celebration of stuff. It raises stuff to the high office of “art” & allows the artist to show off while it’s at it. In the world of art, stuff has been used to flaunt, as a status symbol & as a clue as to someone’s station in life. More recently, it has been the stuff itself that has combined to be the actual art, whether in installation, collage or multi-media works.  & it’s worth remembering, one person’s stuff is another’s rubbish, so mind where you keep yours. Scott Fraser (b. 1957), Saint Sebastian III This staggeringly photo real surrealist work might be unfathomable were it not for the title. Even with the title, it makes you think. There’s a lo...

        This past week some smiles returned, as Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) arrived Wednesday to start its third and final season. This will be a 12-episode season (same as season 2), with a straight-through schedule, a new episode each Wednesday through May 31st.       This season picks up just before the start of the next football season, with some relationships in flux and the pre-season's anticipation and posturing becoming the focus for the sports press. We get to catch up with most of the main characters. Many moments of doubt and angst for several of them, but Ted ultimately remains Ted, and this pocket universe remains the better for it. These will be difficult characters to let go of, but ideally they'll be left in a good and hopeful places at the end. In my dotage I'm more desirous than ever for the notion of a happily ever after.       Bonus: I have/found the captions option, something to get switched on...

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  Daffodils are coming up here in Virginia (sorry for those in the US who are still snowbound).  I'm getting back the Invisible Man  series next with with 1940's The Invisible Man Returns , but we're going thrift store stuff this week.  Let's get to it! ___________________________________________ Helene Hanff is kind of a fascinating figure to me; a writer of plays that somehow never got produced and especially as a writer from the early days of television dramas in the US, she's best know for her book about her correspondence with London book dealer Frank Doel, 84, Charing Cross Road .   It's a very charming collection of their correspondence over 20 years, ranging from the just post-WWII days until his death in 1968.  Talk about your book that is infused with a love of literature and physical books.  There's a raft of nice little adaptations, particularly a 1987 movie starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins...

I am quite fond of closing myself away with what Jeeves would call "an improving book" and The Bell Jar seemed to fit that ticket. After I watched this Ted-Ed video on YouTube, I knew I needed to at least make the attempt. I want to warn you straight away that if you srtuggle with your own mental health, and especially suicidal thoughts/tendencies/ ideation, please steer clear, or have someone you trust on stand-by for help when you reach difficult parts. Our story begins with Esther in New York. She has won a scholarship and is spending the summer as an intern for a ladies' magazine. Its all fun and games until she goes to a party where she is sexually assaulted. She leaves New York immediately. Once home, we follow Esther as she struggles with symptoms I personally recognize as PTSD, including but not limited to: * inability to sleep *Depression *inability to eat *suicide attempts *inability to write When Esther confides in her mother, she is taken to an anal...

 Getting closer to the conclusion of this audio tale of modern suspense with each passing week. You can find all the episodes to date at the Facebook Page "Freedom Island -- modern suspense."

I was looking through a music blog called Butterboy Compilations over the weekend when one of Butterboy’s posts included a very familiar title: Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon . And I was reminded of a post I wrote long ago for my now-deleted blog, Echoes In The Wind . Here’s that 2007 post, after some minor changes in 2019 and this week:   I was wandering around the blog  Lost-In-Tyme , reading about a CD anthology called  Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon , a collection of mostly self-released recordings by women from the early 1970s. The folks at Chicago’s Numero Group label, which released the collection in March 2006, heard the influence of Joni Mitchell in those long-ago recordings and named the collection in tribute to Mitchell’s 1970 album,  Ladies Of The Canyon .   It sounded like the kind of thing I’d like, so I read the review and looked at the track list. And I looked again.   There, listed as the first track, was “A...

Albuquerque field trip. After a rough start, we are having a wonderful time. Take a look at some of the beauty we are experiencing. Our hotel.  Charming casitas with a lovely courtyard.  Our casita.